Can I mount my iPod's hard drive to a computer?

June 7, 2005 7:43 PM

My [mac-formatted] iPod seems to have died but a friend of mine is convinced that he can resurrect the hard drive if we can mount it to a machine. We've disassembled the iPod (3rd generation) and removed the hard drive (Toshiba MK1504GAL, 15GB 1.8-inch embedded HDD, 50-pin) and now I'm planning to buy a Slimline CDROM to Desktop IDE Adapter to connect the little drive to a desktop enhanced IDE 40-pin connector. Has anyone successfully done anything like this? Is this total insanity?
posted by go vegan to Technology (4 answers total)

Did you already try booting in disk mode to see if you could mount the drive before tearing into the thing?

If so, then the most you can probably hope for with the present scheme is recovering some of the data on there with a good recovery program. Having done so, I doubt you'll be able to put together a functioning iPod again since its likely that either the disk or the iPod is fried.

If not, well, you probably had less drastic options. How old is the iPod anyway?
posted by Good Brain at 11:01 PM on June 7, 2005

I helped go vegan with this a little. We did try disk mode. Upon opening the iPod, it appeared that the cable that connected the disk to the motherboard was loose, and that's why the disk was inaccessible. So we assume that the hard drive is working, the hard drive is out ofi the case, and rather than repair the iPod he just wants the music off of the drive.

The question is: is the Slimline adapter (above) the right cable to mount the hard drive into a G4 tower, and if not, what is?
posted by djacobs at 9:03 AM on June 8, 2005

Response by poster: Just to answer Good Brain's question though, I bought the iPod in May 2003 and treated it like it was the most valuable thing on earth--there's not a scratch on it and I never dropped it. Within about 9 months, it started acting up, and soon after the warranty ran out (coincidence? I think not.), it basically crapped out entirely. By "crapp[ing] out," I mean that if I ever let it shut down, it would take me an hour+ of rebooting to reach the one "magic" boot that would bring it back up normally. Otherwise, it would perpetually give me the Apple logo.

I ran the diagnostics and determined that I had a hard disk failure (somehow!), so I called in the djacobs rescue squad.

I don't care about having a functioning iPod or ever owning another Apple product. I just want my music back.
posted by go vegan at 10:21 AM on June 8, 2005

No, it would be the wrong cable adapter.

The adapter you found is for connecting 2.5" laptop IDE to a 3.5" cable, with something supplying the 5v power rail it needs to operate.

The market for 1.8" hard drive adapters is miniscule.

Check out the iPod Super. He built an adapter to hook up a 3.5" disk to an iPod. You may be able to use his guidance to do the reverse.
posted by blasdelf at 12:01 AM on June 9, 2005